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UNION COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Union County law officers are seeing an increase in the number of people suspected of making methamphetamine.

It could be called public enemy number one in Union County, methamphetamine.

Not long after he came into office in January, Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards realized that the manufacture of methamphetamine was on the rise. This, despite a law banning over the counter sales of pseudoephedrine, which is used to produce small amounts of meth.

Criminals are finding other ways to make the drug. They buy pseudoephedrine from someone with a prescription, or they recruit others to travel to Tennessee where over the counter sales are still legal. On the street, that activity is known as smurfing. The sudafed is brought back to Mississippi where it is used in homemade labs.

Since March, more than 50 people have been arrested and charged conspiracy to manufacture or sell meth.

“In our opinion, and in the eyes of the law, they’re just as guilty, to me, as the person actually shaking the bottle or doing the manufacturing,” says Sheriff Edwards.

Sheriff Edwards says the meth is highly addictive and affects not only the user and his or her family, but also the entire community.

“They begin to get very paranoid, hygiene goes down and they don’t seem to care about nothing other than where they’re going to get their next high from. By ruining homes and families and children’s lives and stuff, is a plenty good enough reason to prioritize it,” says Edwards.

Sheriff Edwards says concerned citizens are a big help fighting the war on meth. Through those tips and good old fashioned police work, the sheriff says those involved in the manufacture and sale of the drug will be caught and face justice.